This Is One Tough Market to Beat

After digging into the guts of the stock market’s first-quarter rally, the folks at research firm Birinyi Associates conclude: “This is a really tough market to beat.”

The firm looks at the S&P 500′s advance/decline line, a metric that measures how many stocks rise on a given day compared to how many that fall. The firm added these daily numbers through the quarter to come up with a cumulative figure.

Throughout the first three months of the year, the S&P 500′s cumulative “A/D” line is +4,012, which Birinyi notes is much higher than recent quarters in which the market notched similar overall gains.

“In effect, everything is going up, which means you have to pick the best of the best,” Birinyi says. “It also suggests that funds will have a hard time beating the benchmark.”